Older blog entries for eskimoses (starting at number 12)

Posted some interesting thoughts that have been bugging me off and on at MeatBall:TheoryOfRelativity. A different perspective on the effects of gravity on spacetime. I'd love it if anybody looked it over with a critical eye.

I think it's funny how such a large proportion of diary entries here start out with an apology for how long it's been since the author wrote. I realized a while ago that I had the same tendency in writing e-mails to friends I hadn't written in a while. Invariably, the e-mails would begin with "Sorry I haven't written in quite a while. Partially due to busy-ness, but also just due to my own laziness."

It occurred to me that this must get annoying to whomever I'm sending ('cause it typically happened to be the same people). So right then and there I resolved never to give an excuse for a late e-mail, but to make up for it instead by giving more details on what happened since last I wrote.

Just an amusing thought that struck me this morning. There's a whole lot of "been a long time since I wrote" being saved for posterity here. :-)

Why MeatballWiki and Wiki are fast becoming my preferred places to hang out:

• whoami.
• kuro5hin.com is back.
• kuro5hin is becoming rather, um, popular. Perhaps too much so. But perhaps it'll calm down.
• If worse comes to worst, you can delete bad content on a wiki; bad content, once posted, is semi-permanent on Slashdot, Kuro5hin, and Advogato.
• Wikis are just darn cool, 'specially the two listed above.

PS: On the ever so slight chance that I'm delighting any troll by having "bit the bait", this isn't a rant at all (cf. my previous diary entry regarding the self-defining nature of community); it's more of a wistful statement of my slowly shifting tendencies in community preference.

PPS: raph, I'd be happy to be docked all the way back to observer if that's what it takes to stiffen the trust metric to a more reasonable threshold. I'm sure most other participants would also gladly give up some or all of the "status" they've attained. Again, I have few problems with who certs who; the trust metric, however, is I think a tad too generous.

A number of people have commented lately that they don't feel like they deserve their certification. I'm not quite as concerned about this as some have expressed, for these reasons:

• I think there's room here at Advogato for more than just active contributors to OSS. I say this somewhat selfishly, since I don't participate actively in OSS design, development, or testing. I think, however, that there is scope for open-source "philosophers", into which category I'd place myself -- people able and willing to speak at length on open-source (and contribute to it through their participation in Advogato discussions), but who in general don't participate otherwise.
• A community is what the community defines itself to be, not what it has been decreed to be by its founder(s). I've been continuing to ponder the notion of online communities and technological controls on the communities. I think what I wanted most to avoid was the degradation of a community into spam, trolling, etc. But what I failed to consider is that communities are vibrant, dynamic entities with a personality of their own that is independent of the personalities participating in it. The more restrictions and conditions that are imposed on a community, the more it will chafe under those restrictions. I think growth and death are key elements of any community. At least, "death" in the sense that it shifts from the founding intent, perhaps to the extent that the founders jump ship. What I'm saying is that if the community decides on a particular attitude towards certification, that is not inherently "wrong". (Note: I would argue that perhaps stronger preconditions should be used to justify the metric's bumping people to a higher level. However, I wouldn't argue with any individual's choice to certify any other individual.)

I would speculate that someday, Advogato will become too big for its britches (some people probably already are starting to feel this way). Yes, there will probably be stop-gap measures, like a diary "favorites" list to only show you the diary entries you want to see (someday the diary list will be completely recycled in a matter of hours, I'd bet). But enough people will become dissatisfied that they set up additional communities elsewhere, and life goes on. I don't think that's bad -- I think it's a good and healthy progression in the life of communities and their participants. It's necessary to keep the flow of new and exciting ideas going.

nymia, keep up the good work. I like reading your diary entries; 'twould be sad to see it move elsewhere or disappear as "private".

I hope to tutor a fellow from church tonight, if our schedules coincide. He's in high-school but is taking classes at NC State. He's got problems with math, which is right up my alley. Finally an opportunity to start giving back in response for all that my mentor gave me! I would probably barely even be using computers today if he hadn't done so much to help and encourage me to where I am. I owe a lot to him. Here's to mentors everywhere, and the idea of mentoring! (clink!)

Grr. The wonderful US Postal Service is somehow screwing up our mail. We moved here almost three months ago, and have experienced as recently as a week ago important mail being returned to the sender. We confirmed with the senders that they had the right address. And we talked to the delivery guy, too -- he's wonderfully friendly and helpful, and I'm sure it's not his fault. Meanwhile, bills and student loan information and freshNew credit cards with my wife's new name have all been sent back to the sender. And this is just the stuff we know about. What's weirder is that most of our mail does seem to arrive just fine. We've called 'em twice, and I'm waiting for the local PO to call me back. This is not fun.

Wow. I'm floored by the attitudes expressed in many people's diary entries. I'm beginning to think there's enough disillusionment that a movement could be started! :-) (cf. dhd's diary).

What are we all in this occupation for, anyway? All of the work I do goes towards making my company more profitable, and to provide its customers a better product (thereby making them more profitable). What is the end result of this? A better business economy. But I'm perfectly happy as I am now... I don't need a better car, better residence, etc. What if I built a cabin and hunted and fished and gardened and maybe dabbled in other small jobs? I'd have just as much fun as when coding (though I might still pine for it; but I pine for the outdoor life now). This applies to OSS, too. What, really, are we accomplishing through what we develop?

I'm definitely not Luddite; I have no problem with technology. In fact, I really love it. My question is more rhetorical in nature; I'm hoping to encourage discussion more than I am trying to make a statement: what does our relentless pursuit of technology gain me or anyone else? The answer seems to be nothing that we do not have already. I think what I'm realizing is that maybe technology should be no more than a pastime, at least for me. Technology is a means more than an end. And right now, for me, I think it's in definite danger of becoming an end.

Technology is good, but not intrinsically. Health- and safety-improving technology is good. And the ability to travel, etc., etc. But the overwhelming majority of us simply pursue nebulous things like interoperability and efficiency. Alas, all that pursuit still hasn't brought us much closer to technology as a means: ubiquitous computers disappearing under the covers of everything and making our lives nice and simple (a typical goal). What do we really gain from little things like one-click shopping and real-time package tracking? (I'm speaking as a non-shareholder here.)

Undoubtedly I'll be made to eat these words, despite my painstaking editing. Understand this: these are currently still-nebulous thoughts bouncing in my mind for which I'd like to hear others' opinions. This is not some sort of grand sociological or political statement.

squiggy: while I'm not at the point you are, I wholly agree with you. I've come to realize, especially lately, that I must continually examine my priorities to make sure that pursuit of in-the-end worthless things doesn't grab a hold of me. (I suffer from a pervasive "project" mentality which makes me feel like I must always be doing something. But you know, 99.9999% of the world doesn't give a da** what I do or think, and never will! Sometimes that's frustrating, but sometimes it's a wonderful relief.)

raph, I like your idea . I was just thinking yesterday that I haven't been camping since I graduated and got married. My wife and I started planning to build up a modest collection of outdoor stuff and start up hiking and backpacking again this fall. Church volunteer work is going to get a high priority too.

--

In other news, someone discharged a firearm in the parking lot outside our apartment last night. Fortunately, they were arrested, and the renters who were hosting them were given the boot. Certainly the strangest and most exciting incident since we moved here.

deekayen: I sympathize with your plight (lack of cooperation between developers / projects; a general aimlessness in development). Most of what I've worked on has (generally) been a solo operation; when it hasn't, I've usually held the reins so I've been comfortable with its direction. But I can identify with where you're coming from.

Something that I think the average OSS "me too" hacker overlooks is a good design process. The attitude of most budding developers is, hey, I've got a cool idea, why don't I go bang it out on the keyboard and hack it into something workable? The hacker approach doesn't always cut it, though, and I think the more mature elements of the OSS community need to do more to emphasize this. The larger OSS projects, such as KDE, GNOME, and Mozilla, [seem to -- correct me if I'm wrong] embrace this approach. I think that more should be seen of it at the freshmeat level, however.

Eager as one may be to code, it is usually far more fruitful to step back a tad and contemplate the design of a project. Carefully think through those ER / SO models for your database! If you're doing it in some OO language, read up on object-oriented design and carefully work out your object model. If not, you should still carefully ponder program flow, etc. The rewards will be significant. I've also found that often it is more fun designing than coding (personal opinion).

This, I think, is where cooperation between developers can shine: people can discuss and debate elements of the design. (Prototypes can be whipped up, but the urge to code something "real" must be suppressed! I'm a member of the open-qubit development list, and have seen a bit of confusion result from a rush to code before design had been carefully considered.) After the design has been okayed by most of the serious participants, development can proceed. Since the design will be finalized, parallel development will be easier (one hopes). Only when divergent [acceptable] designs come to light should development efforts fork.

None of my college classes emphasized this approach (alas!). My real world experience, however, which has varied from ad hoc hacking to detailed process, taught me this: a careful approach to requirements, design, implementation, and testing will usually pay off in the end.

I've been spending some time thinking lately about online discussion groups like Slashdot and Kuro5hin. Having just run across Advogato, I'm very impressed with some of the ideas implemented here, though a little disappointed that there's still a single point-of-view imposed on all participants. Much of what I was thinking of (except for individualized points-of-view) are already in Advogato. Kudos, raph!

It just occurred to me that perhaps we might step back and question the very idea of discussion forums, instead of merely pondering their implementation. As a couple of people here have pointed out, it seems inherently impossible for a discussion forum to grow bigger than a certain size -- even if all content is top-notch -- and function properly. What if 50 people post brilliantly written reviews of the latest version of fillInTheBlank(TM)?

Advogato's notion of diaries intrigues me. People like their ideas and ruminations to be heard (at least I do), and like to hear the better thoughts of others (read: high s-n ratio in a discussion forum). Perhaps what we need is a better vehicle for people to air their ideas. What I'm imagining is a site (assuming it would be delivered through HTTP) that is fairly similar at first glance to Advogato's diaries. People post entries and ideas. But each person's diary is partitioned from everyone else's. You can browse others' diaries and comment on entries just like a regular discussion group. Your comments become linked into both your diary and theirs.

Different levels of "trust" expressed towards different participants make their entries more visible to you; perhaps their diary entries appear on your home page. You might also be able to rate individual comments, as well. By expressing high trust opinions of other participants or their comments, those who trust you highly are in turn more likely to see those same diary entries. Certain comments may be so insightful that they make it to the home page of just about every user.

The core difference is that there is no front-end to this discussion forum; you view only those diary entries ("articles"?) of those people you choose to. Yet there is nothing keeping you from exploring the user base to discover others whose comments interest you. Moreover, the commenting and cross-linking aspect allows discussions to spontaneously form. Moreover, threads can continue to generate discussion, perhaps even weeks after the original posting, when someone new and fresh runs across a comment in the thread.

The one snag I can think of is that, without controls on cross-linking comments into others' diaries, one could pollute others' diaries very easily. I'm sure that it wouldn't be too hard to overcome such problems.

I'd love to help out with such an idea, though at this point I think I probably don't have enough time to do more than design. Often that's the coolest part, though.

Given my luck with ideas of late, I'd be willing to bet this is already being done.